2023: South Korea's awakening

By Park Jung-won

In 2023, Northeast Asia's path toward a new Cold War paradigm will become increasingly clear. China and Russia will refuse to impose sanctions on North Korea for any of its illegal activities that violate U.N. Security Council resolutions and undermine the international nuclear non-proliferation regime. Xi Jinping's consolidation of near-absolute power in China will signify the disappearance of a "friendly" check on North Korea's aggressive behavior.

And the United States, South Korea's best hope of assistance, is also inextricably caught in a web of rapidly deteriorating relations with China and the uncertainties of the outcome of its proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, both of which distract from its other pledges of alliance. South Korea will have no choice but to adapt to this reality.

Nevertheless, there are still many people in South Korea who think that the denuclearization of North Korea can be achieved through dialogue, even though North Korea has officially vowed to become a nuclear power and use nuclear weapons against South Korea. Not a few politicians, officials, scholars and ordinary citizens still maintain this fantasy. In order for South Korea to survive the tough geopolitical challenges of the new Cold War, it must awaken and leave its illusions behind.

First, South Koreans should abandon the misconception that economic aid will convince the North to give up its nuclear weapons and become a normal state. This idealistic notion stems from "functionalism," for which the European Union serves as an example. In Europe's history, wars broke out almost every century, resulting in large-scale deaths and destruction.

In an attempt to avoid this, after World War II, the European Community (and eventually the European Union) was created on the basis of three pillars (economic community, common foreign and security policies and cooperation in justice and home affairs) to establish stability in the region. Former enemies have now become entrenched partners for peace and prosperity.

However, those who recommend this functionalist approach to inter-Korean relations have neglected an important point: all the countries in the European Union share the aim of liberal democracy. The two Koreas, in contrast, have completely different political systems and ideologies. No matter how much South Korea tries to understand and help the North Korean regime with good intentions, it will not be welcomed by the North Korean regime. The official name of North Korea is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), yet North Korea is neither a democracy nor a republic.

Despite suffering mass starvation in the late 1990s, North Korea went on to conduct a nuclear test in the early 2000s, and it is now preparing its seventh such test. Its missile technology to deliver such weapons has likewise progressed. North Korea's nuclear weapons are a means of maintaining and consolidating the North Korean regime's power, so they will never be scrapped under any circumstances. A liberal democracy would have no reason to behave this way.

Another great fantasy that deludes South Korean society concerns its geopolitical status. South Korea may have entered the OECD's "rich club," but it is not a great power in the realm of international politics. With the help of the United States and the United Nations, South Korea rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the Korean War.

Thanks to the Korea-U.S. alliance system, South Korea has achieved nothing short of an economic miracle. But great-power status does not come from being well-off. Russia and China are considered great powers even though they are not advanced countries by other measures. And many OECD members, including Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Belgium, are not major powers, despite being economically advanced countries.

A country that wants to be recognized as a great power must win such a position on its own in the international community and prove to existing powers that it is one of them. Many people seem to suffer from "great power syndrome" as South Korea is an economically advanced country that has been recognized for its competitive defense industry, which exports high-tech weapons to foreign countries. But arrogance derived from partial successes can lead to self-destruction. As South Koreans pop open the champagne this New Year it should not be in the delusion that theirs is now a powerful country on the course for greatness.

Rather, with the nuclear problem, South Korea now faces its most unprecedented national security crisis from North Korea since the Korean War armistice in 1953. In 2023, the intensity of North Korea's provocations against South Korea is likely to increase dramatically, with a real possibility that a localized armed conflict will break out between the two Koreas. South Korea will have to manage the Korea-U.S. alliance more carefully and strategically than ever to avoid a deterioration on the Korean Peninsula and a fundamental shift in the geopolitical conditions of Northeast Asia.

German philosopher Georg Hegel said, "The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk." What happens in the present is not fully comprehensible, but with time we gain sufficient perspective to understand our experiences. After 30 years of failed efforts to denuclearize North Korea, South Koreans have learned enough. Now is the time that they wake up from their fantasies. Hopefully, the year 2023 should mark this awakening.

Park Jung-won (park_jungwon@hotmail.com), Ph.D. in law from the London School of Economics (LSE), is a professor of international law at Dankook University.